Far Country, a — Complete eBook

She had had talking dolls before, and dolls that closed
their eyes; she recognized this one, indeed, as a sort
of super-doll, but her little mind was modern, too,
and set no limits on what might be accomplished.
She patted it, but was more impressed by the raptures
of Miss Allsop, who had come in and was admiring it
with some extravagance. Suddenly the child caught
sight of her stocking, until now forgotten, and darted
for the fireplace.

I turned to Maude, who stood beside me, watching them.

“But you haven’t looked on the tree yourself,”
I reminded her.

She gave me an odd, questioning glance, and got up
and set down the doll. As she stood for a moment
gazing at the lights, she seemed very girlish in her
dressing-gown, with her hair in two long plaits down
her back.

“Oh, Hugh!” She lifted the pendant from
the branch and held it up. Her gratitude, her
joy at receiving a present was deeper than the children’s!

“You chose it for me?”

I felt something like a pang when I thought how little
trouble it had been.

I smiled.... Miss Allsop deftly undid the clasp
and hung it around Maude’s neck.

“How it suits you, Mrs. Paret!” she cried....

This pendant was by no means the only present I had
given Maude in recent years, and though she cared
as little for jewels as for dress she seemed to attach
to it a peculiar value and significance that disturbed
and smote me, for the incident had revealed a love
unchanged and unchangeable. Had she taken my
gift as a sign that my indifference was melting?

As I went downstairs and into the library to read
the financial page of the morning newspaper I asked
myself, with a certain disquiet, whether, in the formal,
complicated, and luxurious conditions in which we now
lived it might be possible to build up new ties and
common interests. I reflected that this would
involve confessions and confidences on my part, since
there was a whole side of my life of which Maude knew
nothing. I had convinced myself long ago that
a man’s business career was no affair of his
wife’s: I had justified that career to myself:
yet I had always had a vague feeling that Maude, had
she known the details, would not have approved of
it. Impossible, indeed, for a woman to grasp these
problems. They were outside of her experience.

Nevertheless, something might be done to improve our
relationship, something which would relieve me of
that uneasy lack of unity I felt when at home, of
the lassitude and ennui I was wont to feel creeping
over me on Sundays and holidays....

XX.

I find in relating those parts of my experience that
seem to be of most significance I have neglected to
tell of my mother’s death, which occurred the
year before we moved to Grant Avenue. She had
clung the rest of her days to the house in which I
had been born. Of late years she had lived in
my children, and Maude’s devotion to her had
been unflagging. Truth compels me to say that
she had long ceased to be a factor in my life.
I have thought of her in later years.